Silent Ritual : A totally unputdownable Scottish murder mystery by Andrew James Greig

Author:Andrew James Greig [Greig, Andrew James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Storm Publishing
Published: 2024-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-SIX

POLIS

‘You expect me to take this seriously?’ Detective John Jenkins still retained a hint of his native Welsh accent, now overlayed with sufficient Glaswegian after forty years to make him an unusual Celtic hybrid. He still looked Welsh, as far as Teàrlach was concerned. Thick dark hair even into his forties, heavy eyebrows and built like a pit pony with a temperament to match.

‘Someone has to,’ Teàrlach replied. ‘Three bodies turning up with the same MO and on the same points as this drawing.’

He left the rest unsaid.

‘And how did you come to have this pentagram and map?’ The detective’s eyebrows formed hairy question marks above each suspicious brown eye.

‘We’re working for a firm of solicitors, looking for the relatives of a couple who died intestate. This came from the paperwork they gave us.’ Teàrlach tried for innocence. ‘You wouldn’t know anything about them, would you – William and Sheila Warmington, eighteen Seaview Drive? They were both found dead together. In bed.’

Detective John Jenkins fixed Teàrlach with a look that precluded travelling any further down that line of enquiry. ‘I’ll need the papers.’

Teàrlach shrugged unconcernedly. ‘They’re with the solicitor. We’ve tracked their relatives, so the paperwork was sent back to them yesterday.’

‘Mail?’ the detective queried.

Teàrlach nodded.

‘Then it will be Monday at earliest before we can make a start.’ John Jenkins glowered as if the glacial speed of Royal Mail was Teàrlach’s fault. ‘What made you connect these deaths to this diagram?’ He held a printout of Chloe’s map superimposed with a hand-drawn pentagram up for inspection as if searching for authenticity.

‘Something my PA noticed. She has an interest in symbols, realised the sign for water coincided close to the young lass in the Kelvin, then when the next two lined up with the pentagram, she realised there was more than coincidence at play.’

‘Why a pentagram? Are we dealing with satanists or something?’

‘The pentagram is drawn at several places in one of William Warmington’s journals – and on the cover. Chloe saw a map of Glasgow with the pentagram sketched over it, and realised with a bit of tweaking the murder locations fitted a little too well for it to be a coincidence. When this third body turned up this morning and fitted the drawing, we realised it must be connected.’

The detective managed to express utter disbelief with the slightest movement of one impressive eyebrow. ‘I’ll need to speak to her. Today.’

‘I’ll ask Chloe to get in touch with you as soon as she can. We’ll do anything we can to help the investigation.’

‘Why come to me?’

Teàrlach didn’t hesitate. ‘Your name came up as someone connected to the Warmington case. Thought you ought to know about the journals in case it’s important.’

Detective John Jenkins seemingly decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. ‘So these two locations here…’ He indicated the two remaining points on the pentagram that hadn’t already been the location for brutal murders. ‘You think whoever is doing this is deliberately placing dead bodies on the five points of a bloody pentagram, tied up with string?’

‘Looks like it.

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